


I Started A Joke

by npse



Category: Glee
Genre: Character Development, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/npse/pseuds/npse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An insight into Puck's childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Started A Joke

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd and deeply personal. Sorry.

Throughout his life, there’d always been one constant. Whenever he was feeling down or worried about something, he turned to music because he’d learned that other than himself, music was the only thing he could rely on to keep him safe and motivated and strong. He realised that no matter what was going on in his life, music would always be there to distract him or empathise with him or help him get mad. Not that he ever needed help in that department.

So the moment Puck discovered, or rediscovered, that not all music was going to keep him safe, it felt like his world had crumbled. Behind his bad boy exterior, underneath the Mohawk and the give-no-fuck’s snarl, Puck was still just a kid. An 18 year old with a lot of baggage. Usually, he could hide it. He was really good at hiding it. But after a lifetime of hiding and running and letting himself be soothed by music, all it took was one song to bring Puck crashing back down to earth.

*

He remembers it in bits and pieces. Sometimes it’s clear, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it hurts and sometimes it’s nothing. A lot of the time Puck can’t tell if his memories are true or not – whether the events he thinks happened actually did or whether they’re figments of his imagination, whether they’re tainted by other people. He was only young when it started. The arguments, the fights, the shouting. He’d been no more than nine.

His mom was pregnant with his little sister. His dad was busy with prostitutes. Puck was busy trying not to cry in front of his parents.

They fought all the time. Sometimes they tried to hide it, other times it exploded so fast that there was nothing they could do to shield Puck from the argument. A lot of the time, it seemed like they forgot he was even there. Most of the time the arguments were one sided. His mom used to scream at his dad for being a ‘poor excuse for a man’ and always questioning him on ‘how could you do this to us?’. She insulted him freely and creatively, always using curses or adjectives laced with venom in the hope that something would get through his father’s lost and dull exterior. For the most part, his dad said nothing. Not much to say in your own defence when your prostitute of choice calls up your home and talks to your wife.

Whenever he was lucky enough to not be in the room when the fight started, Puck sometimes pretended he couldn’t hear them.

Sometimes it worked.

*

Puck had a few good memories of his childhood. Most of them were from football games with his friends. When he was younger, Puck used to dream for his mom to come watch him play. He was good at football, one of the few things he was actually good at, and wanted to show her – wanted her to be proud of him. Every time he asked her to go she’d make a fuss and come up with excuses about how the bleachers made her bones ache and the other parents were always so snobby. She always said she’d go, though. She never did.

As Puck got older, he stopped asking her to come and she stopped pretending she’d try and make it.

*

One argument Puck remembers really well. Sometimes his memories of the particular fight are so vivid he feels as though he were in a movie. He remembered this particular fight so clearly because it was his fault. If he hadn’t been doing what he was doing, it wouldn’t have been so bad that night.

They’d been having dinner and Puck was feeling restless. He’d had a good day at school and was full of energy and excitement and everything in their home felt too small, too constricting on him. His mom was feeding mushy peas to his year old baby sister and all he wanted was some of his mom’s attention. That’s all he ever wanted. He flicked his peas at her.

“Stop it, Noah.” His mom had warned without turning to him.

He loaded his spoon up with peas and flung them across the room.

“Noah.” Her tone was harsh. He knew it well.

Puck was out of peas by then. All that was left were plump baby carrots. He wasn’t stupid, he knew they weren’t ideal for launching from his spoon, but what other option did he have? He placed the carrots on his spoon, rearing it back and watching them soar through the air and land in his mother’s hair.

His dad had laughed.

Puck turned to his dad with a grin.

“That’s great, Martin, just fucking sit there and laugh at him.”

His smile fell. He knew that tone well, too.

“For Christs’ sake, lighten up.” His dad had droned with a sigh, hiding his face in his hands at the table.

“ _Don’t you fucking tell me to lighten up, you son of a-_ “ Puck’s mom had screamed, swiping her arm across the table in rage as she turned from his sister to glare at his dad.

Puck frowned, picking up his spoon and making a show of eating properly as if to say ‘look, I’ll be good, please stop fighting’. The mood was tense in the room but no one spoke a word and Puck thought that maybe he’d won and that the trick to keeping the peace was to be a good kid. He was proud of himself for fixing it. Now all he wanted to do was make everyone laugh and forget about being mad at each other. He just wanted everyone to be happy.

He filled his mouth with creamy mashed potatoes and looked to his father. It took a few moments of staring to catch his dad’s attention, but as the older man raised his eyes to meet Puck’s, the younger of the two grinned and as he did so, pushed the mashed potato through his teeth. His dad smiled too, glancing toward his mom before filling his mouth with potato and echoing Puck’s actions.

Puck hooted with laughter and his mom raised her head and he looked to her, hoping to see her smiling too. She wasn’t.

“Sure, push potato through your teeth – really mature.”

“Aw, come on, the kid thinks it’s funny.”

“ _The kid_ is nine years old and you’re what – 28? Grow up.”

Puck’s father rolled his eyes, something that despite all of Puck’s wishing hadn’t gone unnoticed by his mother. She’d stood from the table quickly, throwing her glass of water down on the table and letting the chair she’d been sitting on fall backwards with the force. She’d screamed at Puck’s dad for ages before storming out but Puck never took notice of what she said because his focus had been on the chunk of glass that had lodged itself into his leg. It always impressed Puck that the glass shattered the way it did and bounced across the table to him.

When his mom came back into the house a few minutes later, tears coating her voice, she told him to get dressed and be ready to go for a walk with her. He didn’t move. He couldn’t move. His leg was bleeding.

His dad hadn’t noticed, or if he had he hadn’t said anything and for that he got another round of screaming as Puck’s mom took him to the bathroom and cleaned the cut.

They didn’t go anywhere that night.

*

Once, Puck had been particularly brutal to a kid in middle school and was forced into counselling. He didn’t want to go but it got him out of Chemistry so he figured he should at least do something with the time. He hadn’t meant to open up the way he did. He hated talking about things, especially emotional things, but something in the way the counsellor gently prodded him for answers made him want to open up.

He’d told her about that night and how he’d had glass in his leg from his mom. He’d been adamant that it wasn’t deliberate but the counsellor had still called his mom and asked her to come in. When she did, she informed the counsellor that no such thing had happened. She said that Puck was making up stories to get attention because that’s what he did and that’s all he was good for. He insisted that he hadn’t made it up, but they both shot him down.

Puck still has the scar on his thigh from the glass.

*

Sometimes Puck found himself wishing he had a father like everyone else. When he looked at Kurt and his dad, he saw the perfect relationship. It made him jealous. He wished he had someone to look up to like that, someone to model himself on. When he was younger, he idolised the man. As Puck grew older and learned more about the world, he realised that the things he thought were cool about his dad were the worst things about him of all. Still, DNA and nine years of his parental influence were enough to instil a few redeeming qualities from father to son. The first being music and musical talent and the second being an interest in cars.

The two things mixed on Sundays when Puck’s dad was usually nursing a killer hangover and his mom was baking as a distraction and also so she had something to give Puck to take to school. Usually he threw the nicely decorated cupcakes at the windows of the middle school counsellor’s office and hoped that he’d get caught. He never did.

It was one of these Sundays that gave Puck his only near-positive memory of his father. They were bonding, his dad singing along to the radio and fixing the engine on his less than impressive sedan and Puck sitting on top of the tool box and handing his dad whatever tool he asked for. Puck was a little old to be sitting on the tool box, but neither he nor his dad said anything. He felt important, helping his dad out on the car. He liked the way his dad never babied him or asked if he knew which tool he wanted. They just worked.

The classic rock station on the radio was playing hit after hit and Puck was loving it – soaking in the sound of his father’s voice and the click-clicking of ratchets and spanners at work. And then the song came on. It was the first time Puck could remember hearing the song and it stood out because it was the first song that made his father stop working and take a break, singing along all the while.

The happiness of the moment was gone with that song.

*

But with every good memory, a bad must accompany it and Puck’s worst memory of his father was a doozy. It was brutal but it wasn’t violent. It hurt but it wasn’t physical. It crushed Puck but he was never even touched.

“Be a man and sit down with your son and explain to him why you’re doing what you’re doing.” His mom had pressed. Puck wishes she hadn’t. Sometimes he thinks she wishes she hadn’t too.

“Noah, c’mere a second.” His father had beckoned him over to the couch and Puck had done as he was told.

“I’m going to tell you something very serious right now, so listen up. Okay?”

Puck nodded.

“Well, I’m just gonna say it.” His dad exhaled sharply and his mom stood off to the side, watching carefully. “I’m having an affair.”

Puck blinked a few times and his mom laughed. “What nine year old knows what an affair is?” She asked sardonically.

“Do you know what that is?” His dad had asked him, ignoring his mother, and Puck shook his head. “It means I’m sleeping with another woman.”

It took a few minutes for that to register before Puck could speak. “Does she have nice pyjamas?”  

His father frowned and his mother choked out a laugh before pressing for a better explanation. “He’s nine, at least make sure he understands.” She’d pressed.

Puck wished he didn’t understand.

His father steeled himself and looked Puck right in the eye. Puck loved his father. He loved him a lot. He looked up to him and idolised him and told everyone he knew that when he grew up, he wanted to be just like him. He was his hero.

“I don’t love you.” His father said simply.

*

When Puck joined the glee club, he hadn’t expected his mom’s reaction to be quite as bad as it was.

“You want to be just like him, don’t you? You love him so much, why don’t you go fucking live with him!” She shouted at him.

Puck ignored it the way he always did.

Even when she threw a plate of half-eaten dinner at the wall beside his head, he ignored it.

Even when she smashed his guitar, crying and exclaiming that he was good for nothing, he ignored it.

He ignored all of it.

Her insults meant nothing to him. He’d grown immune to them over the years.

The day he told her he’d gotten Quinn pregnant, though, she said something that ripped Puck to shreds internally. She’d looked at him with a look of pity and disgust and practically spat six words at him before taking his little sister to the park.

“You are definitely your father’s son.”

*

Sometime after telling Puck he didn’t love him and before actually leaving the family behind, Puck’s dad moved from his mom’s bed to Puck’s. At the time, Puck didn’t know why. As he got older he learned that it was because one of the prostitutes his father had slept with gave him an STD which he in turn gave to his mom and she kicked him out of her bedroom forever when his only reply to her news was ‘can I catch it?’.

Puck wasn’t at home the first night it happened. He didn’t know it had happened. He had stayed over at Finn’s house one night and come home the next day to find his room and bed smelling of his father.

He used to stay up past his bedtime watching cartoons so he could fall asleep on the couch and not have to go back to his bed because it smelled like his dad.

He never slept in that bed again.

*

Eventually, Puck’s dad left and even at ten, Puck was ready to pick up the pieces. For a long time things were good. Puck’s dad occasionally made child-support payments and sent his mom emails that asked how the kids were doing. Puck’s mom always got mad about the emails exclaiming that if he didn’t care while he lived with them, why would he care now?

Puck ignored anything his mom said about his dad. He couldn’t care less about his father and a lot of the time, he couldn’t care less about his mom too. Sure, she was looking after him and she was doing her best and he was grateful – but it wasn’t easy living with her and sometimes he wished he were by himself.

Slowly but surely the emails became less frequent to the point where they stopped altogether and it got to a point where it was almost as if Puck didn’t have a father at all and he was just born of natural badassery and sex appeal.

He was pretty well adjusted, considering everything. Or at least, he liked to think so.

All it took to crumble that façade was a phonecall when Puck was 16.

It was an evening like any other – the game was on, beers were in the fridge and the pizza was on the way. The phone rang as Puck was fetching himself another beer between quarters.

“Hello?”

“Who’s that?” The caller asked.

“Who wants to know?” Puck answered, taking a step back in the kitchen, leaning against the doorway so he could continue watching the game while he dealt with the call.

“It’s- It’s your father.”

Puck didn’t believe in all that sappy bullshit in movies about it feeling like the pit of your stomach had fallen out but _god_ was that an accurate description of the moment those words rang down the line.

“No seriously, who is it?” Puck pressed, despite his brain telling him that no, it wasn’t a joke and yes, it was really him. The voice was so familiar.

“Is that you, Noah?”

“No, it’s Sarah.” He answered sarcastically before hanging up the phone.

His face burned with embarrassment and his stomach felt light and uneasy as he returned to the couch in a daze. He watched the game to the end but had no idea what happened. He paid no attention. His mom asked him who called and he said it was no one.

He wished he told his dad to fuck off. He wished he’d made it clear that he had no right, no _fucking_ right, to be calling his house after so many years. He wished he’d had the courage to say everything he ever wanted to say to the man. But he didn’t.

Because as much as he wanted to pretend he didn’t care that he didn’t have a father, that it didn’t affect him, the truth was that it hurt.

It hurt a whole fucking lot.

*

According to all reports, especially by Puck’s Nana, his parents were the happiest couple she’d ever seen.

“I would never have picked your father to do what he did,” She’d confided in him once.

Apparently everything changed with the arrival of their first child.

Everyone always said that kids shouldn’t blame themselves for their parents falling out and Puck generally agreed that they shouldn’t. But not in his case.

He knew that if it wasn’t for him, his parents would still be together and in love and happy.

*

In all the world, there was only one song Puck couldn’t listen to. Not because he hated it or was sick of it or anything.

Because it hurt.

Hearing that song hurt like hearing his father’s voice on the phone did. It hurt more than words could ever say, should Puck ever be able to find the right ones to express it. It hurt more than any breakup or fight or tackle in football. It hurt more than he liked to admit sometimes.

And to be honest, it only took the first line of the song to make Puck’s stomach drop and his heart clench and his eyes sting because it took him back to that moment in the garage with his father when he was on top of the world, watching his old man fix a car and bestow upon him the gift of music and a love of cars.

He’d never heard the full song since that day in the garage and he probably never would.

_I started a joke that started the whole world crying. But I didn’t see that the joke was on me._


End file.
